I couldn’t stop BLUBBING
The emotions overflowed when Prue Leith took a journey to Cambodia in search of her adopted daughter’s birth parents – and the TV cameras were there to capture it all
She is the no-nonsense Great British Bake Off judge who stepped into Mary Berry’s shoes without batting an eyelid. But when it came to making a heart-rending journey to Cambodia to help her adopted daughter search for her biological parents, Prue Leith admits she became ‘such a blubber’.
Prue made the decision 45 years ago to adopt a 16-month-old Cambodian girl, Li-Da, giving her an idyllic upbringing. But she rarely questioned if she could have helped Li-Da connect more with her Cambodian roots. Now social media and DNA testing are allowing thousands of children who, like LiDa, were evacuated before Pol Pot’s genocide to find relatives.
Li-Da, 46, who has recently adopted her own baby, not only felt a burning desire but also a poignancy as a new mother herself to explore her heritage and help Prue understand why it’s important. So they travelled to Cambodia together in January, and now their emotional trip can be seen in a oneoff Channel 4 show, Prue Leith: Journey With My Daughter.
‘Adoption was not an obvious choice, I had doubts,’ recalls Prue, now 80. ‘My late husband Rayne was 20 years my senior and had raised three children. But I wanted the experience of pregnancy. So we decided to have one baby then adopt another.
‘Our son Daniel was born in 1974, the apple of our eye. Then I worried I’d never love anyone as much as him. But we heard of a Cambodian baby urgently in need of a home after her French foster mother could no longer care for her. I rushed out to Paris to get Li-Da.
‘The minute we actually had her, the whole problem went away. But I’ve always felt cheated that I didn’t have Li-Da’s babyhood because I so loved Daniel’s. But I didn’t feel it so much until we went to Cambodia and I saw these gorgeous babies – every single one reminded me of Li-Da.
‘It looks like [in the film] I spend my whole life crying. That’s not like me. I don’t know why I’ve suddenly become such a blubber.’
Li-Da, a film-maker, doesn’t think she’s ever seen her mother cry, or at most only rarely. ‘I’ve seen another side of my mum,’ she says. ‘I wanted her to connect with Cambodia. I knew she’d support me but she’s not very good at empathy, so I’m proud of her.’
In April 1975, the Khmer Rouge, whose Killing Fields took the lives of nearly two million Cambodians, marched on the capital Phnom Penh. Just three days before the city fell, six-month-old Li-Da was flown out of the country in a bassinet beneath the feet of the pilot of a US helicopter on one of the last flights. Her adoption was organised by the late French humanitarian Yvette Pierpaoli, who got hundreds of orphans and sick babies out before the end of the war.
After 26 years, Li-Da returned to Cambodia to make her moving 2003 documentary Belonging, to find out the truth about her past. She discovered a little about her parents, but adopting her son in the UK was the catalyst for returning.
‘Li-Da always said she’d adopt as it had worked for her. I’m so proud she wanted to do what I did – have one baby then adopt. She did try for her own baby. But she got breast cancer and couldn’t conceive,’ says Prue.
‘She decided on adoption and to get that little boy was such a joy. It’s brilliant just to have Li-Da as happy as she is. Having her son triggered the trip. She’d always wanted to go back and she wanted me to come.’
Li-Da left Cambodia with only her birth certificate and an adoption contract saying her family were from Ta Khmau, a suburb ten miles outside the capital. After 20 years of research, one concrete thing she has learnt is her adoption contract was signed by a nurse from a psychiatric hospital.
‘No one really knows what happened to her parents,’ says Prue. ‘But I was told a tragic story when I adopted her. Her mother was killed in a rocket attack and her father, an injured soldier, carried her until he could walk no further. He had to give her up before the Khmer Rouge came.
On a previous visit to the hospital Li-Da was told the story of the rocket attack, but wasn’t sure it was true. This time they learnt the rocket didn’t kill anyone, so her mother could still be alive. Research led to a woman whose daughter of the same age was adopted from there, and in the show there is a heart-in-the-mouth day for Prue and Li-Da as they track her down and wait for the DNA test results to see if this is indeed LiDa’s birth mother.
‘We thought we’d struck lucky,’ says Prue. ‘When she was waiting for the DNA results, my thoughts were odd. One moment I’d think, “Oh my God, what if this family becomes part of my already big family? They’re desperately poor, Li-Da and I will want to look after them.” But then I was really hoping it’d be her mother, so I felt so sorry for her when it wasn’t the case.’
A subsequent online DNA database search found a match with a third cousin who lives in LA. ‘My third cousin’s family are in Cambodia and they’re going to help me fill in more gaps,’ says Li-Da. ‘But now if I can’t find my own mother, it’s not such an emotional pull as I’m more certain of myself, and my relationship with my mother is stronger.’
Prue Leith: Journey With My Daughter, Tuesday, 9pm, Channel 4.
‘We thought we’d struck lucky’